Video Games

Most virtual reality experiences are slow and plodding for a reason. The developers don’t want players to feels dizzy and lose their lunch on the carpet. But as teams experiment on VR projects, they’re beginning to figure out what works and what doesn’t. That’s where Raw Data comes in.

The developers at Survios have come up with a compromise that lets players move around and battle hordes of adversaries on the HTC Vive without making them sick. The key to Raw Data is teleportation. It lets players quickly move around by letting them aim with the left Vive controller, hitting a button and instantly taking them to the direction they want to go. What’s unique about the game though is that it lets players move around so easily that it feels second nature.

Combine that with frenetic gameplay and Raw Data is a legitimate action title that makes players feel like they’re Neo or Trinity from the Matrix.Continue Reading →

The news thatEvolve is going free to play isn’t the only big announcement coming this summer. Along with that move, Turtle Rock Studios is introducing a new hunter to the mix. Electro Griffin has a Hollywood vibe to him as the new character enters the fray.

He is armed with the Laser Storm, an SMG that slows down its targets with electricity. His Final Lockdown is a harpoon type weapon, which will hinder the movement of monsters while Griffin’s Electro Suit gives a boost to his mobility. Players can check out a video of the hunter in action here. The new character is part of the Evolve Stage 2 effort, in which Turtle Rock is revamping its asymmetrical shooter. The developer is aiming to make the game more fast-paced with shorter matches and easier mechanics for hunters.

Players can check out Griffin and Evolve Stage 2 for free on on Steam right now.

After the end of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the developers at Eidos Montreal didn’t know where to take the series. The team had just pulled off a remarkable feat — they rebooted a cult classic — but now, they had to work on a follow-up. The only problem was they had no idea where to take the story.

According to gameplay designer Patrick Fortier, the developers thought they were done with the game’s protagonists, Adam Jensen, but it turned he wasn’t done with them.

“After Human Revolution was done, the narrative director (Mary DeMarle), in many ways, she thought it would be the end of Adam Jensen right there,” Fortier said. “But after re-exploring the world. Maybe that story arc isn’t completed.”

Eidos Montreal examined the aftermath of the cataclysmic Panchaea event and found that the world they created was scary. “It is the flipside of the transhumanoid coin,” he said. If Human Revolution was filled with the hope of an augmented future, then Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is about the dystopia that arises from it. After madman Hugh Darrow broadcasts a signal that sends augmented people into a murderous rage, the world is on edge. Afraid of a similar incident, they create a mechanical apartheid, where people with robotic parts are separated and treated like second-class citizens.Continue Reading →

Despite being relatively young, Forza Horizonhas quickly become one of my favorite racing franchises. It doesn’t have the hard-core seriousness of Gran Turismo. It has some of the accessibility of its more established sibling Forza Motorsports, but but what separates Forza Horizon from other titles is the pure freedom and joy inherent in its drive.

In Forza Horizon 3,Playground Games expands the opportunities for fun by bringing the series to Australia. The diverse landscapes of the land down under puts an emphasis on vehicles other than speedy supercars. Creative director Ralph Fulton says, “The open world is twice the size of Forza Horizon 2” and it also has twice as many ecosystems with areas such as canyons, beaches, wine country and rain forests. That terrain makes vehicles like trucks and buggies more viable in races.

That variety shows up in the roster of cars, which reaches up to 350 vehicles at launch, Fulton says.Continue Reading →

That’s the reaction I have when playing a short demo of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Eidos Montreal’s sequel to the successful reboot carries over much of the story from the original. Adam Jensen made a choice that caused chaos across the world after everyone who had an Augment went ballistic.

That happened two years ago in the Deus Ex world, and now, Adam Jensen finds himself on a squad of commandos trying to deal with the new reality. As the lone augmented operative, he’s tasked with infiltrating a dilapidated resort in Dubai. The augmented workers there went crazy after Jensen’s decision and went on a murderous rampage. It’s also the site of a potential arms deal involving military grade augments. The mission called Operation Blade Dancer is meant to stop that transaction.Continue Reading →

On its 25th anniversary, Civilization VI is a reminder of how far the series has come. The lush polygonal worlds and complex system is light years ahead of where the series started with rough-looking sprites and spare mechanics. For the latest iteration of the franchise, leader designer Ed Beach said they looked at the past for ideas toward the future.

“Even before Civilization Vvanilla shipped, we thought about unstacking cities,” Beach said, but the idea was too much at the time when the franchise was already undergoing radical changes. The fifth entry to the series shifted how the game played as it moved from tiles to hex. It added new mechanics with how military units could occupy one tile at a time. Firaxis didn’t want to bite off more than they can chew by adding a new layer.

With Civilization VI, Beach sees a new era of refinement. The team carries over most the improvements from the previous title, including the expansion packs. Religion, espionage, trade routes and archaeology come back, but interestingly enough, “none of the code came over from Civ 6,” Beach said. “We wanted to take advantage of new coding techniques.” Firaxis looked at how each of the systems behaved in Civilization V and they rewrote them.Continue Reading →

From the first frames of the debut trailer, I wasn’t sure I was aboard with Volition’s new game Agents of Mayhem. The team appeared to have made a project that clung too closely to its previous Saints Row franchise. The visuals didn’t looked too far advanced. The initial hero, Fortune, seemed generic just like the city, which could have been any futuristic locale.

But then, Hardtack interrupted everyone, and Volition had me at “Ahoy …”

That’s the bravado and unexpected comedy that the team from Champagne, Illinois, is known for. The developer may not impress players with god rays or sun-dappled creeks, but they know how to make gamers laugh. They can push the boundaries of the bizarre and they know how to have fun with their characters. Agents of Mayhem is no exception.Continue Reading →

Call me Batman, helmsman Batman. I am aboard a shuttle on my way to the starship USS Aegis. It feels like I’m really in space thanks to the Oculus Rift and the Oculus Touch controllers in my hand. I’m giddy about boarding.

You can thank Ubisoft for this experience. The company’s foray into virtual reality realm has been an interesting one. They have some action titles such as Eagle Flight, where a player flies by tilting her head, and Werewolves Within, which has a more social aspect as they search for a monster in their midst.

But Star Trek Bridge Crew may be its most intriguing project. It essentially lets players live out the dream of helming a starship. I was part of a crew of four, which included a captain, engineer, tactician and helmsman. I was the helmsman. Before boarding, the game teaches players how to operate their station. As helmsman Batman, I was the pilot who locked on to different coordinates via the touch screen in front of me and moved the ship by touching the control on my right. To my left, there was a throttle that activated warp speed.Continue Reading →

Titanfall was one of those games that felt like the next level. It was innovative with its asymetric warfare between foot soldiers and mechs. It was forward-thinking with its smooth locomotion mechanics that let players wall run, slide and double jump at will. But for some reason, the first-person shooter never caught fire the way Call of Duty did despite having some of the creators of the military blockbuster at the helm.

That’s what makes the sequel, Titanfall 2, so compelling. Will Respawn Entertainment learn from its mistakes? How much better will a second draft of the game improve?Continue Reading →

Gravity Rushwas originally a launch title for the PlayStation Vita. The unusual game where a mysterious protagonist named Kat can manipulate gravity was and still is one of the best games on the system. The original gameplay mechanics that used motion controls and lush visuals made the title stand out.

Although it wasn’t a huge success on the Vita, it did warrant a sequel. After all, the original — which is also available on the PlayStation 4 — ended on a cliffhanger. I had a chance to play Gravity Rush 2 at E3 last week. This time around, Kat and her friends find themselves in Jirga Para Lhao.Continue Reading →